Violet goes to Mars and Venus

I suppose it was inevitable.  Jack and Violet have bathed together since the day that Violet was sturdy enough to sit in the bathtub on her own.  Even earlier if you count that we used to wash her in her baby tub on the floor next to Jack's bath.  I don't normally run bath time, so I usually hear the shenanigans from another room.  But a couple of days ago, I threw both kids in the tub before dinnertime because Jack had just had his swim lessons.

As I was scrubbing both kids down, I noticed Violet examining Jack's private area with curiosity.

"Jack-Jack's pee-pee?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, that's Jack's pee-pee," I told her.

"Where's Violet's pee-pee?" she asked, and she looked down at the corresponding part of her anatomy.

"Violet's pee-pee is right there," I said.

She looked at me doubtfully

"Where's Violet's pee-pee?" she repeated.

"It's right there, Violet," I said, "between your legs.  Same as Jack."

But I could tell she didn't believe me, because she kept asking.

So I know that the conventional wisdom says that you should always teach your children the correct anatomical terms for their private parts, and I don't necessarily disagree with that.  However, for me, the main reason to do so is to avoid confusion if a child needs to inform his/her parents or doctor about problems in that area.  I've heard people teach their children ridiculous names like "la la" or "hoo-ha."  I think "pee-pee" is perfectly understandable and universal, so it's never really been a big deal to me.

However, I could see that having a gender-neutral term was causing some confusion for my little girl.  So I basically had to spell it out for her.  It took her a little while before she understood, but finally, she said, "Jack... pee-nus?  Violet... 'gina?"

"Yes, Violet," I said, relieved that she finally seemed to understand. 

The next morning, however, the first thing she asked me, "Where's Violet's pee-pee?"  I repeated my explanation that boys have one thing and girls have another, and she seemed satisfied.

Attendant with all this, it seems she's really trying to figure out who is a boy and who is a girl.  It never really occurred to me that she didn't understand the difference before this.  So I've explained to her that Violet is a girl, Jack is a boy, Mommy is a girl, Daddy is a boy, and told her the genders of various friends.

What's interesting to me is that I've never really had to have this conversation with Jack.  Sure, we had the early confusion about who is a boy and who is a girl, but never anything anatomically related.  I think he may have asked a couple of times about why Violet's "diaper area," as he used to call it, looked different than his, but he seemed to accept what we told him the first few times and hasn't really brought it up again.  Of course, he was much older than Violet is now when she was born, so maybe he had an easier time understanding it.

At any rate, this is what Violet has been saying for the past day: "Jack is a boy. Daddy is a boy.  Mommy is a Violet.  Jack pee-nus.  Violet 'gina."